


Still Life

by kangeiko



Category: Alias
Genre: Community: fanfic100, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-21
Updated: 2006-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sydney goes through the debris of her parents' lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Life

**Author's Note:**

> fanfic100 Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane #24 - Family. My table is [here](http://kangeiko.livejournal.com/113677.html).

It isn't a surprise that Jack left everything to Sydney. It _is_ a surprise that Sloane did the same. No, that's not quite true, but since the parts he left to Jack and Nadia are hers anyway by _their_ last wishes, Sydney has a large box full of photos and a large bank account full of blood money. She debates what to do with the photos (the money has already been disposed of; the mere thought of what it has cost her family makes her sick). Most of them are old, before her birth-old, she supposes. Some have obscure references on the back, like, "Cameroon, third shot, floor - you owe me a new pair of boots!" Jack and Arvin are smiling for the camera. She has some trouble thinking of Jack as her father when she looks at the picture, frowning at Arvin's arm around his shoulders and the unfamiliarity of Jack's young face. They have odd string bracelets threaded around their left wrists, like small girls used to have when Sydney had been young, and she wonders what they had signified back then. Arvin's shirt is untucked, and Jack's hair is rumpled, and she does not recognise these young men; no not at all.

She lays that one down back in the box, very carefully. Her father's smiling face chases her as she turns to the others.

There's one of her mother and Emily in a strangely tasteful 70s kitchen, giggling into their cups of tea at some unheard joke, and Jack rolling his eyes in the background. Emily's eyes are shining, and Laura's belly is swollen, and Jack looks happy, too happy for words, and there is no question of who took that picture.

That one she burns.

Next is a picture of a dog, and Laura's skirts are tied in a knot above her knees as she waves a stick in the air. Why would Sloane have a picture of her mother playing with the family dog?

Burn.

Emily as a small girl, frowning seriously at the camera. She has braces on her teeth and her hair is pushed back with an Alice band. An unfamiliar hand has written on the back, "my darling baby girl, on her first day at school."

She keeps that one.

The next one is of Sloane, except that it's actually Arvin, because he's very naked and maybe all of three months old. There's no personalisation on the back, just the date the picture was taken. Sydney has had similar pictures taken of her as an infant. Is there a rule?

She pauses, then tucks it back into the box.

There's a whole selection of Italy-themed photos - villas, gardens, roses, the odd ruin - that she gathers up and dumps to one side to burn later. She doesn't want to think about that part of Sloane and Emily's life, and the brief vulnerability she witnessed those many months ago.

Some odd theme-park photos, Jack in uniform - when had he been in the armed forces? - Emily as a Girl Scout, Laura eating pickles with an almost- flat belly and a sheepish expression on her face -

she's half made up her mind to burn them all, really

\- and Sydney, looking as ugly as most babies do with their uncanny resemblance to a sack of potatoes. She's staring wide-eyed at the camera, a dark thatch of hair the only real colour in the picture. She's wrapped in white linen, and is held firmly by a white-clad Sloane around her midriff, hoisted up as if being presented for posterity. Her head lolls back against his shoulder, and his mouth is puckered into a moue of cooing reassurance.

On the back, in her father's familiar hand -

"Baby Sydney, three weeks old, and her godfather."

Yes, Sydney decides. She's going to burn this one first.

*

fin


End file.
